staggering to and fro for an instant like a stricken kite,
and then settling in the centre of their own lawn as falteringly
as a fallen leaf.

"Somebody's lost a good hat," said Dr. Warner shortly.

Almost as he spoke, another object came over the garden wall,
flying after the fluttering panama. It was a big green umbrella.
After that came hurtling a huge yellow Gladstone bag,
and after that came a figure like a flying wheel of legs,
as in the shield of the Isle of Man.

But though for a flash it seemed to have five or six legs,
it alighted upon two, like the man in the queer telegram.
It took the form of a large light-haired man in gay green holiday clothes.
He had bright blonde hair that the wind brushed back like a German's,
a flushed eager face like a cherub's, and a prominent pointing nose,
a little like a dog's. His head, however, was by no means cherubic
in the sense of being without a body. On the contrary, on his vast
shoulders and shape generally gigantesque, his head looked oddly
and unnaturally small. This gave rise to a scientific theory
(which his conduct fully supported) that he was an idiot.

Inglewood had a politeness instinctive and yet awkward.
His life was full of arrested half gestures of assistance.
And even this prodigy of a big man in green, leaping the wall
like a bright green grasshopper, did not paralyze that small
altruism of his habits in such a matter as a lost hat.
He was stepping forward to recover the green gentleman's
head-gear, when he was struck rigid with a roar like a bull's.